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Today I want to hear the ways each of you has found to organize your recipes!

As you all know, I am a recipe nut. A full fledged recipe guru. Recipes are my thing. I love them. I collect them. I invent them. I dream about them. And often these recipes include butter. This cannot be helped.

But recently I was asked, “Laura, what’s the easiest way you’ve found to organize your recipes?” My response, “Oh, I don’t organize them. I just create them.”

You guys do not want to see my recipe cabinet.

Yes, it’s true. I have an entire, very unorganized cabinet full of recipes. (And also a cabinet full of Pyrex. These are needed so I can bake the recipes piled up in my cabinet. And also so that I can enjoy the butter.)

#iheartbutter
#andpyrex

So my recipe cabinet. It is about as messy as can be. When I need to use one of the recipes in this cabinet, I have to dig and scrounge and muddle. But never fear. While looking through my mess to find the one recipe I need, I end up finding three more I forgot were there. And you guessed it. Many of them require the use of chocolate. (Bet you thought I was going to say “Pyrex” or “butter.” Ha. Just keeping you on your toes.)

So today, my friends, we’re going to talk about the easiest way to organize recipes. It’s high time I found a system. My messy cabinet pile is no longer working. It never worked. So let’s talk about how to organize your recipes!

I’m sure you’re eager to learn about this subject from someone who clearly has no clue. Come closer, my friends. I’ll teach you everything I don’t know.

Tips for the easiest way to organize your recipes

As I’ve searched for a system, these are the new tricks that are working best for me at this point.

Keep all your recipes in one place. (At least having all my recipes in one cabinet was better than tucking them randomly inside school books, the silverware drawer, and behind the toaster oven.)

If the recipes are cut from magazines, torn from a book, or printed off the computer, slide them all safely inside a large manila folder or envelope.

Invest in a binder. This is my best idea so far.

I came across this DIY Recipe Binder idea online and I don’t know why I never thought of it before! It’s way too simple, and turns my messy cabinet into a nicely organized recipe haven.

DIY Recipe Binder – FREE Printables!!

I spent a little time creating these lovely binder pages to help me become more organized. I like them so much I decided to share them with you! Not only can all of our recipes be in one place, we can put them all into one organized (and fun!) binder.

How to make and use your Recipe Binder

Enter your email address here and the free printables will be sent to your inbox. (This will connect you to our Heavenly Homemakers email list so I can continue to send you freebies, recipes, and deals!)

Print each of the Recipe Binder pages you will use.

Use a 3-hole punch to prepare them for a 3-ring binder.

As you print recipes from the computer, add them to your binder within the fitting category.

If you have small recipe cards, recipes cut from magazines, etc, re-write them on 8.5×11 inch paper so that they fit your binder. Or slide them into a plastic sleeve that fits in a 3-ring binder.

And that, my friends, is how we’re going to get our recipes organized once and for all!

Or at least that’s the hope. The fact that my new Recipe Binder is cute and fun offers me lots of incentive. :)

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Here we are, beginning Thanksgiving week already! We’ll head to Kansas to spend time with family later this week, thus the abbreviated menu plan below. Since my side of the family won’t be together again at Christmas time, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas all in the same weekend.

Here’s a picture of this week’s grocery store run. See that nine year old boy hiding behind the groceries? He was on sale, and I couldn’t resist.

We’ll be enjoying the special treat of Chex Mix over the holiday.

Our Amazon Subscribe and Save order came this week. I got such good deals – and they are all over my storage room. Not only have I not had time to put them away, it’s freezing in there! I’ll do it….later. ;)

My new Menu Planning Notebook is proving to be soooo much fun – and super helpful too. Do you have yours put together yet? As you can see, I shared my work space with cookie cutters. Malachi and I were getting cookies ready to take to Kansas. :)

What are your Thanksgiving plans this week?

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Here is my inspirational and insightful thought for today: When you have a lot of potatoes, it is neato to come up with a meal plan that includes a lot of potatoes.

How deep was that?

What I mean is…sure I ended up with twice as many potatoes as I really need. But what a blessing to have an abundance of food that is so versatile. There are soooo many yummy dishes to make with potatoes. I had fun coming up with our menu plan. :)

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Last night before bed, I pulled some Whole Wheat Butterhorns out of the freezer to thaw and rise so that we could have them with our lunch today.

Correction.

I was in bed already and beginning to relax when I remembered that I had intended to get the butterhorns out of the freezer. I then had to wrestle around in my head while I tried to decide whether or not it was worth it to get up and get them out as planned.

We were planning to invite college students over to share our lunch, and I knew they would love them and that they would help our lunch “stretch” a little farther. So I went ahead and got up. Oh, it was so worth it. These butterhorns are yummy! And the college students, as well as our family, were very happy to eat them today. :)

Don’t worry. I made more than just these few. This was the second round I pulled out of the oven.

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Our Funky Fresh Kitchen series last fall was so enjoyable, we’ve decided to do it again. Only this time, we have so much planned that we’re going to “party together” the entire month of September!! (And by “party”, I sort of mean work hard…so get out your rubber gloves and a mixing bowl — not to be used at the same time, of course.)

First, what is the Month of the Funky Fresh Kitchen? As summer fades and our fall routines begin, our goal is to inspire you to have a wonderful, fresh start! We want to encourage you to create a kitchen that is healthy andfunky (aka functional). It’s time to clean out, clean up, be encouraged, and learn to (or be reminded that you) love your job as a heavenly homemaker!

All throughout the month of September, you can expect to see:

Fresh, New Recipes (All are easy, all are healthy, and many utilize a crock pot.)

Funky Fresh Freebies! (Including some eBooks from my shop! Some will come and go quickly – so be on your toes!) (Sit back down – that was a figurative statement.)

Funky Fresh Challenges (We’re all in this together. Be ready to get your game on. If you have a blog, be ready to link up.)

Encouragement and Inspiration (Unless I’ve already overwhelmed you with the obvious “loud excitement” of this post. Really, please do come back…) ;)

because there are GIVEAWAYS!!!

Seriously – the giveaways!! Sprinkled all throughout the many fun (and hopefully helpful) posts this month will be some downright incredible giveaways. Want a sneak peek?

You may remember seeing some of those great giveaways last year at this time, and I am so grateful that so many were willing to work with us again this year as we inspire you toward a Funky Fresh Kitchen!

(It’s possible that I’m using too many exclamation marks in this post, but in all my excitement, I’m not sure I’m capable of editing them out.) !!!!!!! (sheesh)

Well now, are you feeling the excitement? Do you feel the love? Do you wish you could give me a chill pill?

I’m warning you now, there will be a lot of posts this month. Freebies, giveaways, recipes, challenges – they will all be posted at random times, sometimes up to three or four posts each day. Don’t worry – I will keep each post short and sweet. After all, how are you supposed to create a funky fresh kitchen if you’re spending all day reading about it?

Take note: All throughout September, each time you leave a comment on a post which displays our Funky Fresh Kitchen button (as shown at the top of this post), you will be entered in a drawing for three gift certificates to our Heavenly Homemakers Shop, good for any downloadable items. We’ve got two $25 certificates and one $50 certificate to give away!

Shall we start practicing now? Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win. AND, if you share about this post about the month of the Funky Fresh Kitchen on Facebook, leave another comment on this post for a second entry!

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Well, Happy New Year everyone! I’m sleepy. I did what I never thought I’d do and stayed up way past midnight last night. I had more fun than I thought I would too, how about that?! But if I’m going to make it through the week, I will have to take a nap this afternoon. :)

How did you ring in the new year?

Here’s what our menu looks like for this week:

Sunday, January 1
Oatmeal, clementinesCheesy beef and rice, green beans
2012 Pancakes (Because, as un-artistic that I am, I think I can pull off making pancakes into the shape of 2’s, 1’s and 0’s. Maybe.)

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As I mentioned last week, we won’t be hosting High School Huddle at our house again until January. This week, middle and high school huddles come together at the church building for a Christmas get-together. Asa and Justus are in charge of making snacks to take to this get together, since they are in high school and middle school. I love watching my boys cook – they do a great job!

I’m excited to make some Peppernuts this week.
My grandma always made these little cookies around Christmastime and I loved them.
They are a perfect snack with hot cocoa.

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All last week, I cooked, and I cooked, and I baked – and I loved it all. But once Thanksgiving day was over, I felt ready for a break from preparing food! I didn’t cook a thing on Friday, and we instead ate leftovers (which I let everyone warm up on their own). On Saturday, I sucked it up and took the time to make Turkey and Noodles (just like my Chicken and Noodles recipe) from the leftovers. And now that I’m working on our menu plan for this week, I’ll admit that I’m having a hard time motivating myself. Maybe I’ll resort to my Mac and Cheese solution this week? ;)

Sunday, November 27
Oatmeal, pearsTaco salad (because I’m feeling rebellious against turkey and I feel like a salad)Turkey veggie quesadillas (because I think I can handle turkey again after eating some beef for lunch)

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Just in case you’re interested in my cooking plan for our holiday meal, here’s a little look inside my brain at how I have organized myself to get the meal on the table for Thanksgiving. I figured I needed to make the lists anyway – might as well bore you with them. ;) Thankfully, everything from the Saturday through Wednesday lists are completed!

{I’m not really trying to be annoying by putting (recipe in Holiday Hospitality eBook) several times in the above lists, but many have asked about those recipes and I thought I’d curb more of those questions by letting you know where to find those recipes. If you’re interested in that eBook, great, but – wink, wink – wait until at least Friday to purchase so that you’ll save a few bucks!!}

Here are my cooking and baking pictures from today. I had lots of fun and my feet are a little bit tired from standing so much. ;)

Below, it looks like I made six pumpkin pies – but really, there are just three. I have a big mirror in my kitchen, and I thought it would be fun to take the picture there to make it look like I got carried away with pumpkin pies.

Pictured with the cheesecake in the following picture is a batch of chocolate chip cookies. One college girl that is around town this week isn’t able to come for our Thanksgiving meal, but she really (really) likes my chocolate chip cookies. I made some to serve at lunch today (Wednesday) when she joined us.

It’s not likely that we’ll run out of desserts. I made this chocolate pudding recipe and poured it over a graham cracker crust for a “chocolate pie”. It ended up in a rectangle dish because I was out of pie pans. :)

I am so excited to eat this healthier version of Green Bean Casserole! Why don’t I make this more often?

Peeling and prepping our potatoes ahead of time is a tip I learned from my former hair dresser many eons ago. I love getting this chore out of the way a day early!

I baked three small sweet potatoes and only ended up with a small dish of them to serve tomorrow. I don’t think this will be the most popular part of the meal anyway, so a small amount will hopefully be fine.

Last but not least, I made dressing – for what I believe is my very first time! My sister-in-law has a wonderful recipe, which she shared for my Holiday Hospitality ebook. It is so easy, I’m not sure why I haven’t tried it before.

And now, I look forward to a good night’s sleep before I get up and tackle my Thursday list. How are your holiday preparations coming?

I’m thankful for all of you and pray that you have a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving holiday!

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For our Marriage Class treat this morning, I decided to make a variation of my Oatmeal Butterscotch Chip Cookie recipe. Instead of butterscotch chips, I used chocolate. And, instead of making the batter into cookies, I pressed it all into a 9×13 pan and baked for 20 minutes. The results were terrific. We have exactly two small cookie bars left. ;)

This week will be a little bit different in that:

High School Huddle will be combined with Middle School Huddle, so several of us are combining our efforts to feed the larger group. I feel like I have “the night off” since I’m only taking a few things that I purchased from the store.

Our local college has the week off, but some of the sports teams are still in town for a few days. We’re hoping to feed the ladies’ basketball team sometime this week. I’ve “penciled” them into Monday’s lunch, but may need to rearrange this plan once I nail down the extact time with the coach.

We’ll be sticking around here for Thanksgiving and have several college students to join us for our big meal.

I’ll try to take a few pictures throughout the week to document our Thanksgiving meal prep – IF I have my act together enough to cook and take pics. I did actually get our turkey baked and deboned yesterday. It’s always great to get that job out of the way! :)